Jo Brocklehurst - The 'Egon Schiele' of punk

(As featured on our instagram page)

A highlight of yesterday's Fine Sale was British artist Jo Brocklehurst's (1935-2006) 'Young Man with Red Scarf' which sold for £5000 as Lot 93. Brocklehurst created the piece in 1982 and her medium was pastel and mixed media on paper. The artwork was displayed at the Francis Kyle Gallery in London and is signed by Jo herself. If you ever considered what Egon Schiele's work might have looked like if he were a punk in the 1980s, the vibrant works of Brocklehurst would be a good guess.

Brocklehurt's bold and eccentric paintings explore gender, sexuality and fashion expression through the alternative underground scenes of London, Berlin and New York. A Hampstead local, her subjects have included the punk scene in 1980s West Hampstead and musical artists such as Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond and Boy George. Through her bohemian subject matter and use of flamboyant colour and different flourescent mediums, she captured the risque world that she saw whilst living in punk squats and fetish clubs in the 1970s and 1980s. Brocklehurst worked as a fashion illustrator and her works have been shown at the V&A and the ICA among other locations.